Often at night I tread those streets again, And see the alley glimmering in the rain; Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps, A house with shadows of plane-boughs under lamps, The secret house where once a beggar stood Trembling and blind to show his woe for food. And now I miss that friend who used to walk Home to my lodgings with me, deep in talk, Wearing the last of night out in still streets Trodden by us and policemen on their beats And cats, but else deserted. Now I miss That lively mind and guttural laugh of his, And that strange way he had of making gleam, Like something real, the art we used to dream. London has been my prison; but my books, Hills and great waters, labouring men and brooks, Ships and deep friendships, and remembered days, Which even now set all my mind ablaze, As that June day when, in the red bricks’ chinks, I saw the old Roman ruins white with pinks, And felt the hillside haunted even then By not dead memory of the Roman men. And felt the hillside thronged by souls unseen, Who knew the interest in me, and were keen That man alive should understand man dead, So many centuries since the blood was shed. And quickened with strange hush because this comer Felt a strange soul alive behind the summer. That other day on Ercall when the stones Were sunbleached white, like long unburied bones, While the bees droned and all the air was sweet From honey buried underneath my feet. Honey of purple heather and white clover Sealed in its gummy bags till summer’s over. Then other days by water, by bright sea, Clear as clean glass and my bright friend with me, The cove clean bottomed where we saw the brown Red spotted plaice go skimming six feet down And saw the long fronds waving, white with shells, Waving, unfolding, drooping, to the swells; That sadder day when we beheld the great And terrible beauty of a Lammas spate Roaring white-mouthed in all the great cliff’s gaps Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse, While drenching clouds drove by and every sense Was water roaring or rushing or in offence And mountain sheep stood huddled and blown gaps gleamed Where torn white hair of torrents shook and streamed. That sadder day when we beheld again A spate going down in sunshine after rain, When the blue reach of water leaping bright Was one long ripple and clatter, flecked with white, And that far day, that never blotted page When youth was bright like flowers about old age, Fair generations bringing thanks for life To that old kindly man and trembling wife After their sixty years: Time never made A better beauty since the Earth was laid, Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair For the great gift of life which brought them there.